Nightmares
by Alibear
Summary: She wakes with a start, eyes darting, heart beating wildly. The sweat beads on her forehead while her perspiration dampened t-shirt clings to her frame. Her breathing is ragged coming in heavy breaths, as though she were unable to fill her lungs.


**Nightmares**

**AN: I know I am still in the midst of In the Eyes of Others, but I had this rattling around in my brain and I needed to get it out. I have been intrigued about what Pepper was feeling when she was waiting for Tony to return. Hope that you enjoy it. **

**As always I don't own Marvel or its characters, though I wish I did **

**Please review!**

She wakes with a start, eyes darting, heart beating wildly. The sweat beads on her forehead while her perspiration dampened t-shirt clings to her frame. Her breathing is ragged coming in heavy breaths, as though she were unable to fill her lungs.

Her mind races, franticly attempting to hold on to the retreating margins of the nightmare. What had it been? The blankness has taken hold; there will be no remembering it now. While the memory is gone, she still retains the fear and anxiety, sitting like a weight on her heart.

Sitting up she search for the clock. 3 AM. It's happened again. She is no stranger to these events or the wretched aftermath that leaves her breathless and frightened. She has been unsuccessful in her attempt to devise a defense. Nothing has been able to protect her mind or heart night after night.

Each night it is the same, the nightmare followed by the restless anxiety that leaves her sleepless. She hasn't enjoyed a full night of sleep since he went missing almost three months ago. Now, it appears tonight would be no different.

Her days are filled with time at Stark Industries. She fulfills her duties seemingly in a mindless haze, preparing press releases, managing Tony's office, and helping Obi when necessary. The people there have given up hope. He is rarely discussed anymore, or at least rarely discussed in the present tense. Most have buried him somewhere in the Afghan dessert.

She knows they whisper about her. The poor girl, valiantly holding out hope for a miracle. They try to befriend her, help her to move to the next phase of mourning, but she allows none of it. Don't they understand who he is? Tony Stark would not go so quietly into the night. His arrogant self-worth wouldn't allow such a thing. For all his seemingly frivolous self-centered ways, there was a good man beneath it all. One that the rest of the world rarely, if ever saw, but she'd seen it. The man that gave anonymous donations to small community outreach programs, knowing that his money would do the most good placed directly in their hands. He was not always all glitter and glam.

The world knew him as a partying playboy, hopping from one glamor filled party to another. While that was a favorite pastime, it was not the driving force of his life. That would be the workshop tucked neatly beneath his Malibu home. This was where the real Tony Stark was, his heart and soul. He lived to invent and create, tinkering for hours on end with his gadgets and gizmos while verbally sparring with Jarvis.

She had made sure that the workshop had remained as he had left it, cleaning it herself. Not wanting anyone touching the things he cherished most. Dummy and Butterfingers whirred around her when she arrived weekly, almost like puppies that were missing their master, anxious for any type of contact. Though he mocked them endlessly, Tony loved those creations and their quirky nature.

She often sat there for hours, surrounded by his things, the things that meant the world to him. Sometimes she would weep for what was lost while at other times she just sat and contemplated what his life right now at that moment would be like, wherever he was. And in her darkest times, she let her mind wander to what her life might be like if he never returned.

That is what she felt like now. Lately her thoughts of him had been in the past tense. She hated herself for giving up like that, but three months in, her realistic side was beginning to overpower her ever hopeful heart.

A sigh escapes her lips. There would be no more sleep this night. She rises from the bed slowly, her feet seeking the floor. The cold tile against her bare feet moves her body further from the call of sleep. She pads into the kitchen and reaches automatically for her phone. It was a habit from her years with Tony that she had not managed to break while he was away. Secretly, in the recesses of her mind, she hoped that someday there would be a message from him, something to release her from this zombie like existence.

But the phone remained silent. She had never realized how much of her time she spent speaking or texting with Tony. Aside from Happy, Rhodey, and her parents, no one really called her. When he first went missing, the phone had practically been alive with calls and texts form the press and friends. As time wore on, the frequency decreased, and now had stopped altogether. They were all forgetting. But she wouldn't.

Flipping on the coffee pot, she overrides the timer. She couldn't recall the last time it had gone off on its own. The routine was in place. She would now sit on her couch and mindlessly surf through the channels. She could tell anyone that wanted to know what the latest as seen on TV miracle products were. Sometimes she would get lucky and find a favorite movie or rerun. And sometimes those shows would remind her of him. A movie they may have watched together or a mindless girlie flick that he had relentlessly teased her about.

Sometimes she could sit through those and sometimes not. When the latter occurred, she would rise and move through her apartment to the balcony. Opening the door she would allow the ocean breeze to overtake her in the hope that it could invigorate her flagging spirits.

Eventually the horizon would brighten and the rest of the world would begin to awaken. As the sun began its daily traverse of the sky, she would often wonder if somewhere he was watching the same events. She hoped he was. She couldn't let go of that one last vestige of hope. The one kept alive by her heart when her brain had long ago abandoned the others.

Surely her heart would know if he were gone. She had long ago allowed herself to admit that that she loved him, knowing full well the folly of those emotions. She had lost her heart to him somewhere along the way. When exactly it occurred, she had no idea. All she knew was what she felt now, though she was under no delusion that he shared or returned those feelings. And she was content with that. Content with her place in his life, knowing that in her way, she was the most important woman in his life.

The sun this day was just peeking into the world when she heard it, the buzzing coming from her kitchen. She knew immediately what it was. Racing back to the kitchen, she picks up the phone, her hands shaking. The face of the phone tells her it's Rhodey. Dread and excitement course through her. She knows that he wouldn't be calling at this time of the monrning if it wasn't something extraordinarily important. Her mind knows that it can only be one of two things.

She calms her rioting nerves enough to allow her the use of her hands. Dragging oxygen into her lungs, she wills herself to answer the call.

"Jim?"

"Hey Pep."

Her knees buckle, she catches the counter with her free hand to keep herself from slipping to the floor. She cannot formulate sentences or coherent words. The only sounds are squeaks and great gasps for air.

His voice , Tony's voice. She wondered if she is still dreaming, that this might be the meat of her nightmare. She fears that at any moment it would all be ripped away from her and she would once again awaken in the darkness.

"Pep?" He questions.

"I'm here," she whispers, her voice awash with emotion.

"I'm coming home," he quietly responds, a slight wobble in his voice.

"I'll be there," she tells him.

The remainder of the conversation is brief. He will return in two days. Other than that, she's not sure she could remember any of it. As she ended the call her hands still shake.

At that moment she finally allows herself to break down, there on her kitchen floor. All the fear and anxiety that had plagued her for three months came rushing out. He was coming home. He was coming home and she was finally emerging from the darkness.

The sobs subsided as the sun began to rise and with it brought her first genuine smile in months. Rising from the floor she makes her way to the bedroom, intent on seeking her first real sleep since this nightmare began. She instinctively knows that there will be no awakening now.

She would need her rest. The boss was finally coming home.


End file.
